Summer 2007 DVD

I've just finished creating the .iso for the Summer 2007 version of the BSDA DVD. This is an installation DVD which includes:

DragonFly BSD 1.8.1

FreeBSD 6.2

NetBSD 3.1

OpenBSD 4.1

Thanks to Oliver Fromme who created the ELTORO boot loader, the DVD boots into a menu which allows you to select which operating system to install. Those studying for the BSDA can practice installing and configuring the 4 BSDs; I like to keep a DVD in my laptop bag as it provides a quick installation method for the latest releases of these 4 BSDs.

I didn't include DragonFly 1.10.0 or 1.10.1 (the latest release) as its installer paniced on two separate test systems. I suspect whatever the problem is to be resolved by next winter, when it comes time to rollup the Winter version of the DVD.

The DVD is also handy as it includes the latest pdf versions of the documentation for the 4 BSDs in one place. These include:

the FreeBSD Handbook and FAQ

the NetBSD Guide and the pkgsrc Guide

the OpenBSD FAQ

the DragonFly BSD FAQ

The Complete FreeBSD, with permission of Greg Lehey

Those studying for the BSDA will also find the pdfs for:

The BSDA Exam Objectives and Command Reference

The Task Survey Analysis Report

The BSD Usage Survey Report and Test Delivery Survey Report

Psychometrics Explained

the first draft of the wiki version of the BSDA Study Guide

Proceeds from the sale of the DVD go to the BSD Certification Group Inc., a non-profit registered in the state of NJ, to help pay for the psychometric analysis and to keep the cost of the upcoming exam globally affordable. You can read more about the DVD here; that page should be updated in the next day or so to include the contents of the Summer Version.

7 Comments

Dru, I definitely see the appeal -- one disc instead of four, one stop shopping for docs if you happen to be somewhere without Internet access and have some time to study, supporting the certification effort, etc.

My interest was piqued by ELTORO. I was disappointed to see that it doesn't have an open-source license. I was hoping that it actually understood ISOs in the way that some boot loaders understand floppy images. With such a loader, you could easily put every bootonly/miniinst for FreeBSD on a single CD or DVD for testing or historical purposes. Other ways of doing this that I've seen required you to combine all contents into a single ISO9660 filesystem, making collisions likely and upkeep a pain.

Is that the way that ELTORO works? I wasn't able to tell from my (admittedly quick) read of the docs.

* It's especially nice having access to guides and FAQ's on a DVD in case I screw up network access during installation.

* Donating to BSDCertification.org isn't tax deductible as a donation yet; but for those of us running a *BSD at work, the purchase of the DVD is a legitimate, tax deductible, business expense (sotware, educational documents, etc). ;-)

Correct, this bootloader is copyright Oliver Fromme and used with his permission. It is the same bootloader that LinuxTag used for their 2006 DVD. I'd like to use an open source loader but haven't come across one yet.
The bootloader allows you to specify the directory containing the boot file for the operating system, which in theory means you could have a separate directory for each of the BSDs (e.g. a directory called 6.2 for FreeBSD, 3.1 for NetBSD, etc.). The reality is a bit trickier in that each BSDs' boot file contains hard-coded path assumptions; NetBSD and OpenBSD are the sanest. FreeBSD and DragonFly are trickier as they expect the same exact paths. I can easily recompile those paths for FreeBSD but DragonFly is messy as src is still icky.
Dru

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